Rabbi Jack Romberg

Posts Tagged ‘neo Nazis’

On September 9, 2016, at a fundraising event with the LGBT community in New York, Hillary Clinton referred to Trump supporters as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic,” and said half of his supporters should be in a “basket of deplorables.” Anyone with a sense of political strategy knew that Clinton’s statement was just plain stupid. It caused many who leaned towards Trump to rally and come together. Soon t-shirts were proudly worn self identifying as the deplorables designated by Clinton. Her statement infused the wallowing Trump campaign with new energy. Yes, it was completely stupid.

But it was also true.

The proof became plain on Friday August 11 and Saturday August 12 through the demonstrations held by various ultra nationalist, white supremacist, and neo Nazi groups in Charlottesville, VA. Go online and look at the images of this group of demonstrators. You will see groups carrying Nazi flags, you will see on Friday night “alt-right” protesters carrying torches that stirred memories of KKK rallies against African Americans. Worst of all, a young man identified as attending the rallies to support his own alt-right views, drove a car into a crowd of counter protesters, killing one and injuring at least 19 others. The video is frightening.

Do you need more proof? Well David Duke, former head of the KKK declared before the protests that these were meant to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. What promises? Well throughout the whole Trump campaign were constant statements, some blatant, some shady, that signaled to those groups now protesting in Charlottesville, VA that Trump was sympathetic to their feelings.

Yes, it is Trump who holds onto this basket of deplorables.

And he continues to do so even in the wake of the violence caused by the rallies of racist, neo-Nazi groups. Beginning with his morning tweets, Trump has failed to call out these groups by who and what they are. In a formal statement later Saturday afternoon, he condemned “hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides.” On many sides? The implication is that the situation is equally the fault of the counter protesters against racism. This creates a false dichotomy that protesters who believe in evil policies (anti-Semitism, racism, white supremacy) and those who come out to demonstrate against prejudice are equally responsible for society’s problems.

The failure to outright condemn these groups by name further clarifies exactly what Trump is because of the contrast to so many other Republicans and conservatives who have quickly and appropriately condemned these groups and their ideals. All of this lines up with his failure to 1) mention that Jews were the primary victims of the Holocaust on Holocaust Remembrance day 2) encourage police to be more aggressive and not acknowledge the tragedy of blacks being killed by police. 3) Failure to condemn the bombing of a mosque in Minnesota. 4) failure to apologize to President Obama for his years of leading the birther movement, instead saying his investigations were a good thing.

The basket of deplorables contains a lot more folks than those who demonstrated in Charlottesville. It includes Breitbart News, which tries to justify all Trump does despite mounting evidence of prejudice, sexism and lies. It includes Sean Hannity for simply being a Trump acolyte. It includes any American who cannot see the connection between Trump’s words, mannerisms and behavior and the events that have unfolded in Charlottesville, VA.

Finally, deplorables try to justify Trump by criticizing statements by Obama during his presidency. Did President Obama make mistakes? Absolutely, as no human being is perfect. But he was and is a thoughtful, moral man whose demeanor and behavior inspired calmness and decency. To not see the difference is deplorable.